“Powerful plant base cleaner”

Common English Blunders, Hyphens, Verbs

I saw this in a television commercial for Arm & Hammer “Essentials” cleaner.

Problems:
1. One of the words should be in past-participle form.
2. A hyphen is missing.

Explanation:
The advertising copywriter was promoting the environmentally friendly and non-harsh nature of the cleaner.

So the copywriter was trying to say that the cleaner was derived from or based on plants.

This gives us the solution to the first problem: The writer should have used the past participle “based” — spelled B-A-S-E-D — instead of the word “base” — spelled B-A-S-E.

Also, the copywriter was modifying the noun “cleaner” with two words in a compound fashion.

This gives us the solution to the second problem: The writer should have put a hyphen instead of a space after the word “plant”.

Both of these problems — not recognizing the need for a past participle nor the need for a hyphen — are, unfortunately, common English blunders.

Solution:
“Powerful plant-based cleaner”